Brussels sprouts! I hear you! What an awful vegetable. You don’t like it, you don’t know what to do with it and with all the good will in the world and you trying to eat your green, you just can’t get it down your throat.
Serves 2-4 people
For the Béchamel sauce (you could get away with half the quantity)
I have to sell this recipe to you because my Brussels sprouts en gratin goes down really well with grilled meat as a side dish. Besides, it’s my Dad’s recipe. That on its own brings so much to the plate.
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| You can double the quantity of brussels sprouts (I tend to go the opposite way) |
Well I say it’s my Dads’ but he initially got it from the French magazine “Femme Actuelle” sometimes late 80’s early 90’s I reckon. He worked on a few substitutes on the meat addition.
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| This recipe dates a bit in our family.. |
So let’s get on with the recipe.
Ingredients
Serves 2-4 people
Prep: 10 min/ Cooking: 5 min (pan) and 30 min oven time
For the base
– 400- 500g of brussels sprouts (if fresh, parboil them for 3 min, if frozen, just use straight away)
– 200 g of sausages of your choice, You could use steak strips or 50 g of bacon (or a mix of all this)
– Salt and pepper to taste
– 1 cube of bouillon (or equivalent)
– 50 g of comte or gruyere cheese
– 1 tbsp of oil
For the Béchamel sauce (you could get away with half the quantity)
– 60 g (2 heaped tablespoons) of flour or cornstarch
– 60 g of butter
– 400 ml of milk, at room temperature
– 1 egg yolk (optional)
– 1 tsp of mustard (optional)
– Salt and pepper to taste
– A generous pinch of nutmeg
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| The glorious brussels sprouts gratin on an Iftar table |
Preparation
Cook the brussels sprouts in a bouillon for 10 min max (water + the cube). Having parboiled them should remove some of that strong taste they usually have.
Drain and set aside.
Preheat the oven at 200 C.
Poach the sausage if you are going that path. Do not forget to prick them in the water. Set aside.
If using the steaks, cut into strips and sautee in butter or olive oil over high flame. Season to taste.
If using bacon, cut into strips and fry. Set aside. I use Turkey bacon when I have them around.
Prepare the Béchamel sauce
In a deep pan, melt the butter. Add the flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Stir and let the flour “fry” for a couple of minutes.
Grad and manual whisk and gradually add milk as you whisk along. The trick is to reduce the heat to a bare minimum, add the milk by 1/4 cup (ish) and whisk to homogonize. Do that ask you go along and get to half the quantity of milk. Then you can pour the rest of it into the pan and bring to heat to medium.
Stir from the bottom of the pan to ensure no sticking is happening on your watch.
Cook for about 10 min then add the yolk and the mustard. It should have thickened by now and bubles would have surfaced.
Knock of the heat and set aside. Stir regularely the first 5 min otherwise you get an umpleasant crust.
Assemble the gratin
Fold all ingredients in the sauce and stir. Grate the cheese on top and place in the oven for 15-20 until dark specks of gratinated cheese appear.
Serve warm with a salad or a nice grilled piece of meat.
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| My Dad’s original recipe cutout |
